Movies - TV
Futurama Parodied Tom Hanks’ Worst Movie With Bender’s Game
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
The "Bender’s Game" episode of "Futurama" depicts Bender learning how to play Dungeons and Dragons. The episode actually parodies the Tom Hanks movie "Mazes and Monsters."
Bender, using his imagination, comes around and invents a character named Titanius Anglesmith, Fancyman of Cornwood, but he soon believes he really is Titanius Anglesmith.
After admitting himself to an asylum, a high-tech super-crystal hidden in Bender's abdomen magically activates and creates a parallel universe where his D&D fantasy is very real.
Co-creator David X. Cohen admitted in a commentary track that he got the idea from the D&D '80s panic envisioned in a 1982 TV movie called "Mazes and Monsters," starring Tom Hanks.
The film follows a group of college students who become immersed in a live-action fantasy role-playing game. Eventually, the lines between reality and fantasy become blurred.
Hanks plays a student named Robbie who was once addicted to a D&D analog called Mazes and Monsters. When he takes up the game again, Robbie loses track of reality.
The film ends with Robbie, unstuck from reality, almost throwing himself off the World Trade Center. Cohen describes this false fear of people losing themselves in role-playing.
Cohen stated, "Parents had the choice of having their kids in the house, playing a game that required great use of imagination, [...]" or "out running the streets."